The usual Clintonite pundits are crowing triumphantly about their narrow, expensive victory over a spectacularly awful candidate in Alabama yesterday, effectively claiming that this vindicates the way they’ve been ignoring everyone to the left of John McCain since the election. I don’t care about the Democratic party enough to write an entire article about how this is yet another sign that its leadership has no intention of ever moving even a single inch to the left in any way that matters, but I’d like to share a few thoughts on the general big-picture trend in US politics that this is a part of.

When I say that anti-Trumpism is anti-progressivism in disguise, I don’t mean to suggest that Trump is progressive in any way, shape or form, nor do I mean to suggest that his administration isn’t advancing many legitimately toxic policies which must be ferociously opposed. By anti-Trumpism I mean the blinkered, frenzied “ZOMG LITERALLY HITLER” cult which prioritizes impeachment of the sitting president above all else and at any cost, and by anti-progressivism I mean it’s being used as a deliberate ploy to manipulate what remains of the American political left into the pro-neoliberalism, pro-war “center”.

The campaign against Roy Moore was simply a microcosm of this general “vote for us because we’re not that scary boogieman” good cop/bad cop game both parties have been extorting the American public with for generations. Like Trump, Moore was a scandal-saturated slob who represented some of the most pernicious aspects of the GOP, and, though his opponent Doug Jones campaigned as a centrist who would work with Republicans, he was still viewed as better than Moore by enough people to win an election. This extortion scheme forced the people of Alabama to choose between a senator who would help move US politics far to the right and someone who would help move US politics only somewhat to the right, and they voted in self-defense, not because they liked Jones but because they feared Moore.

This is a perfect illustration of how anti-Trumpism is being used on a much larger scale. By constantly masturbating the absurd narrative that Donald Trump is simultaneously (A) crazy, (B) stupid, (C) a secret Nazi and (D) a treasonous Kremlin agent, the Democratic party is able to herd the political left into supporting pro-war, pro-oligarchy candidates and agendas. In the same way they used “But Roy Moore!” to win support for an imperialist corporate *****, they will use “But Trump!” to win support for their neoliberal neoconservative extortion scheme at every turn.

Whenever I point this out I get a bunch of Democratic party loyalists telling me “We can walk and chew gum at the same time! We can work to impeach Trump while advancing progressive causes!” No you can’t. You can’t and you don’t. When it came time to fight the DNC’s illicit, charter-violating installation of Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders they “But Trump!”ed you into conforming. When it came time to support a third party they “But Trump!”ed you into conforming. When it came time to demand a massive overhaul of the DNC they “But Trump!”ed you into conforming. When it came time to demand a full investigation and restitution for the Democratic party’s misdeeds and manipulations exposed by WikiLeaks they “But Trump!”ed you into conforming. Every meaningful movement toward economic justice has been muted and marginalized since the election by “But Trump! But Trump! But Trump!” while the Republicans march the country further into corporatist oligarchy, and this scheme will continue for as long as it continues to work.